Main Obstacle to Environmental Accords
Conundrum of Justice: Home vs. Real World

Review of Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art

Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art is a remarkable Kimbell Museum exhibit of creative expression dating to the first few centuries A.D. Although touted as a “spectacular display of many of the greatest treasures of early Christianity from around the world,” the collection is almost entirely comprised of pieces from throughout the Roman Empire. Avid enthusiasts of the early history of the Church and its development, as well as casual museum-goers, will undoubtedly be moved as well as surprised by the depth and complexity of the thought and output produced by the earliest proponents of the New Testament. It is striking to witness the countless examples of popular and powerful themes of the day, themes that have been lost to the intervening centuries from then until now. These include the importance of the story of Jonah and the “leviathan” (which we commonly refer to today as a whale, but which the earliest artisans of both the Old and New Testaments invariably represented as a sea monster in their carvings and impressions); the apocryphal story of Peter, imprisoned in Rome, striking a rock wall in his cell and causing it to spring forth with water which was then used to baptize one of his Roman prison guards and which was a direct attempt to equate Peter with Moses accomplishing the same feat in his desert wanderings; and the constant, consistent use of the icthys (fish) symbol as their identifier, many decades before the use of the crucifixion symbolism that has been used up through present times.

When one is confronted with these earliest Christian symbols, representations, and practices, before the Church was “the Church,” one cannot help being transported back to that time and stepping into the physical and spiritual reality of the early Christian Roman Empire. Followers of Christ’s life and teachings had to rely on each other for understanding and interpretation of these strange tales and how they related to each other and to themselves personally, as there was no mass printing or distribution capability. It is fascinating and humbling to see a sampling of the seeds that were sown thousands of years ago, seeds that have grown into the faith and infrastructure of a religious tradition practiced by over a billion people throughout the world today.

Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art is on display at the Kimbell Museum of Art in Fort Worth, Texas through March 30, 2008. It features “major loans from the Vatican, the Bargello and the Laurentian Library in Florence, the British Museum, the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and a number of other international institutions.” More information can be found at www.kimbellart.org.

Comments

Verify your Comment

Previewing your Comment

This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.

Working...
Your comment could not be posted. Error type:
Your comment has been posted. Post another comment

The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again.

As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.

Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.

Working...

Post a comment

Your Information

(Name is required. Email address will not be displayed with the comment.)